


The War at Home

by Alanine



Series: Enemies Foreign and Domestic [2]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Gen, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Pining, house arrest, moody shepard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:26:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23954554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alanine/pseuds/Alanine
Summary: They say you should never meet your heroes, but for James Vega even worse was being assigned your hero's jailer while she's under arrest for war crimes. The experience is disappointing on many levels until Shepard's mother arrives and does what mothers do best: annoy their offspring.
Relationships: Female Shepard/Garrus Vakarian
Series: Enemies Foreign and Domestic [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1726915
Comments: 11
Kudos: 66





	The War at Home

They always say you should never meet your heroes, they can only disappoint you.

James arrived exactly on time for his shift as he did every morning with a tray of coffees. The first he gave to the guard on the night shift he was relieving. The rest he took with him into the apartment after he keyed his security credentials into the console. He picked his way past the open duffel bags and piles of clothes just inside the doorway. She hadn’t unpacked, she just took what she needed as she needed it and left the rest in the bags. The deliveries of clean laundry got the same treatment, they stayed in the entryway until she needed to wear something. Dirty laundry was dropped just outside the bedroom where it would be easily collected. He went down the short hallway and didn’t even bother checking the bedroom. It hadn’t taken him long to learn that she never slept in it. Instead he made his way to the back of the apartment to the living room. The living room had a full wall of windows that looked out onto the ocean but she kept the curtains drawn. The Alliance had given her a cushy place when it had sentenced her to house arrest, but she seemed immune to its comforts.

He found Shepard sprawled on the couch, still in the previous day’s rumpled uniform. As usual, a datapad lay next to her on the cushions. She also had a wine bottle cradled on her chest, her fingers still wrapped around the neck. He took a step into the room and her eyes fluttered open at the sound of his boots on the floor. No matter how tired she was, he’d never once managed to sneak up on her without waking her. She eyed him as he drew nearer, her face almost expressionless. The skin under her eyes was a shade darker than it had been before. He deposited his tray of coffees on the bar counter that divided the living room from the kitchen.

“Buenos dias, Commander.”

“Don’t call me that, ”

“Whatever you say, ma’am”

It was the same conversation they always had. She wasn’t a commander anymore, she had been stripped of her rank when she was arrested. But he couldn’t bring himself to call her anything else.

She didn’t call him anything. It wasn’t that she resented him for his part in her imprisonment. She just didn’t seem to care about him one way or another. He could have been just another piece of furniture except that he talked.

He felt the disappointment he should have been used to by now bubble up in his chest. She wasn’t what he’d expected. It was a cliche that people were always smaller in person than you expected. She was tall, but slight. She was wiry rather than muscular. That wasn’t what bothered him. Part of her legend was as a charismatic leader. He had been explicitly warned not to let her talk him into helping her. By all accounts, she had surrendered herself into Alliance custody willingly, but there were some among the Alliance brass who thought it was a Cerberus ploy and that she would attempt to escape at her first opportunity. She never tried to talk him into anything, though. She barely spoke to him at all.

No, what bothered him was how indifferent to her captivity she seemed. She had spoken at her trial about the Reaper attack she believed to be imminent. She’d called for increased defenses, warned that destroying the relay had been a delaying tactic at best. All that drive was gone now. She was more like a sullen teenager, hiding in her room and making snarky remarks to the one visitor she ever had, Admiral Anderson.

He thought her arrest was crap, but he would do his duty. He wouldn’t help her escape, but he sort of wanted her to try.

He swallowed the disappointment back down again and asked with a forced lightness, “Been hitting the bottle, Commander?”

She glanced down at the bottle in her hand and a smile flickered across her face, so fast he wondered if he’d imagined it. He began gathering up the empty food containers on the low table next to her.

“I’ll take care of that empty for you.”

He bent down to take the bottle from her and her fingers tightened around the neck. He glanced up to see something dangerous glint in her eyes and felt a cold tingle wash down his spine.

“No,” she said, “You won’t.”

It wasn’t a protest, or even a threat. It was a command. He felt the force of it, the absolute certainty that she would be obeyed. She was a prisoner and he was her jailer but she didn’t seem to have any regard for the distinction. He was twice her size and her biotic amp had been disabled, but the look in her eyes told him clearly the odds didn’t phase her.

Now we were talking. He straightened up and put up his hands, still holding the garbage.

“Yes, ma’am.”

James took everything into the kitchen and disposed of it, then returned to the living room and placed three coffees on the table, keeping the last for himself. She eyed the three he had left near her, then looked up at him with a raised eyebrow.

“Do I look that tired?”

“No ma’am. They’re for your visitors.”

“Oh,” she said and settled back into the couch and picked up the datapad again.

He went into the kitchen and took a seat at the counter. He sipped his coffee and pulled up the records of her extranet activity. All of her communication in and out were closely monitored and the Alliance only let select communications through. For one, Shepard got a lot of crackpot messages from various weirdos. She was famous, it figured. They were probably harmless, but just in case Cerberus had some way of communicating through spam mail, they didn’t let any of those messages through. She got lots of death threats too. They kept an eye on those but as far as death threats went they were pretty garden variety.

Her extranet activity was the same as it ever was. She watched a few entertainment feeds, but not many. Weirdly the one she seemed to watch the most was this old, long-running Turian historical drama that had been popular a decade ago. Mostly she spent her time on newsfeeds. They kept her newsfeed access restricted to official, trusted sources. She scoured them with an intensity that she displayed nowhere else. Read everything she could about the Batarians, which made sense. She combed through every report of geth activity she could find. She read whatever reports there were coming out of Omega, not that there was much to read. Spent a lot of time on the feeds from Palaven, particularly the political feeds. He’d think she was a political junkie except that she barely skimmed the news coming out of the Citadel Council.

He glanced at the time and back to where Shepard lay supine on the couch and frowned. He checked her messages and saw the notification of today’s visitors. He also noted she hadn’t opened it, or any of the messages from the Alliance in the last few days.

“Ma’am, Admiral Anderson will be here any minute.”

“Uh huh,” she responded, but didn’t look like she was going to move any time soon.

“Don’t you want to change?” he asked, gesturing at her rumpled clothes. He heard the door of the apartment open.

“Who are you, my mother?”

“No, but I am,” a voice from the hallway said.

James leapt from his seat and saw Anderson standing in the hallway with a woman with graying red hair and captain’s insignia on her crisp uniform. James snapped to attention and saluted. Shepard remained where she was but saluted them lazily with the cup of coffee in her hand.

“Admiral,” she said, nodding to Anderson, then to her mother, “Captain.”

“As you were, Commander,” Hannah Shepard said, distinctly sarcastic. She nodded to James and gestured for him to be at ease.

James kept his face still but it took real effort. He was both appalled and sort of impressed by Shepard’s nonchalance. It took some real cojones to completely ignore a superior office—two superior officers—particularly one who was also your mother. He knew how his mom would have tolerated such disrespect and she wasn’t even military. Hannah Shepard seemed more amused than anything else. As she headed toward the living room James noticed she had a bag over one shoulder. He put out a hand to stop her.

“I’ll need to check that, ma’am,” he said respectfully. Captain Shepard arched one eyebrow.

“Are you searching me for contraband?”

“Yes ma’am, I am,” he said pleasantly, but firmly. She gave Anderson a look and he smirked.

“The lieutenant has a job to do, Hannah.”

The captain handed the bag over to James and slung herself onto the couch, forcing Shepard to pull her legs up to avoid getting sat on. Shepard looked up from her datapad to where Anderson stood near the hallway.

“Did you bring her here to scold me, Anderson?”

“Think I can’t do that myself?” he asked mildly.

“I haven’t seen you since before you died,” Captain Shepard said. “You getting locked up was the first chance I’ve gotten.”

“Oh I see, this is a guilt trip. That’s the only kind of trip they’re going to let me go on these days.”

“I have to go, but I’ll be back for you in a couple of hours, Hannah,” Anderson said.

James saluted Anderson as he left and went through the captain’s bag. It contained food, there was a stack of maple sausage rations that could be found in the mess of any Alliance ship. He inspected them closely with his omni-tool and didn’t find anything questionable so he handed them back to the Captain. Shepard’s eyes lit up when she saw them with the first real enthusiasm he’d seen. Captain Shepard handed them to her daughter with a smile.

“At least I didn’t come empty handed. I brought your favorite.”

Shepard immediately tore one open and started eating it cold. Captain Shepard’s mouth twisted in distaste.

“Mmmmm, just like you used to make,” Shepard said around a mouthful of food.

Captain Shepard laughed, “I always heated them up first.”

“Takes too long.”

“Impatient child.”

James pulled the last item out of the bag. It was a bottle of wine, the same kind as Shepard’s empty bottle. Shepard glanced at it in his hands as he scanned it with his omni-tool and her chewing slowed.

“Where’d that come from?” Shepard asked.

“From someone on the Citadel,” Captain Shepard responded, sounding smug.

“Did it now?”

“He seemed to think you’d like it.”

Shepard dropped the remains of her opened ration onto the low table and picked up the empty bottle she’d wedged between her hip and the couch cushions. She got up and placed it on one of the high shelves of her empty bookcase. She gave James a warning glance.

“Still can’t have that one.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

James put the bottle of wine back into the bag and handed it to Captain Shepard. He went out to the hallway to give the women a little space. He made himself look busy folding Shepard’s dirty laundry while still keeping them in view. He saw Shepard put her hand out to her mother for the bottle. Captain Shepard pulled it out of the bag but didn’t hand it to her daughter.

“You’re going to have to tell me about him if you want the bottle.”

“He’s a good soldier, used to work for C-Sec. He helped me take down Saren Arterius. Then he helped with the Collectors.”

“And now he’s buying you wine.”

“He’s a good friend,” she said stiffly. “Had my back whenever I needed it.”

“Right, it’s always business. Like when you and Nathan Branson were ‘training’ to get ready to enlist..”

“Mom!” Shepard colored a little.

“Come on, kid, I know your tricks.” Captain Shepard looked around at the messy room. “I know this mood.”

Shepard slumped down into the corner of the couch again.

“I’m not in a ‘mood’, I’m under arrest. Except it’s not even a real punishment. It’s a gilded cage where they can keep me away from everything and everyone who matters.”

“So now you’re pretending you don’t care about anything. But that’s not you.”

Captain Shepard raised the bottle of wine and offered it to her daughter. “He told me to tell you he’s doing what you asked. Said he’ll shout until someone pays attention, just like you always do.”

That pulled a small smile from Shepard. She leaned forward and took the bottle from her mother and ran her hands over it tenderly.

“I met him once before, you know,” Captain Shepard said. “At your funeral. He was very proper and respectful but out of everyone he was the angriest.”

“That sounds like Garrus.” She looked up from the bottle and her angry posturing fell away. She leaned forward and took her mother’s hand. “I’m sorry you had to go through that. I’ll try not to die again.”

Captain Shepard made a dismissive sound but it came out sounding a little choked. She lifted a hand and finger combed Shepard’s hair away from her face briefly.

“I was proud of you. Everyone on your crew spoke so highly of you. It helped to know my child had been such a good leader.”

Shepard smiled and looked away, back to the bottle in her lap. She cleared her throat.

“So.. did Garrus say anything else?”

Captain Shepard quirked her mouth into a grin. Shepard scowled at her.

“No, honey. He was pretty careful not to say anything incriminating to your mother. I’m just glad I got to meet your boyfriend.”

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

“No?”

“We never really talked about that,” Shepard mumbled.

Captain Shepard rolled her eyes. “You went off to get arrested without telling him how you feel.”

“You don’t know how I feel about him.”

Captain Shepard just gave her daughter a knowing look.

“Didn’t really seem like the right time,” Shepard said with chagrin. “I didn’t want him to wait for me.”

“You can’t keep him from waiting if he feels the same about you,” Captain Shepard said, pointing to the wine. “You’d think dying would have taught you not to leave any business unfinished.”

“True.” Shepard smiled a little ruefully. “So.. What’d you think of him?”

“He seemed.. nice.”

“Mother.”

“Maybe a little stiff. Very turian.”

“Not always.” Shepard leered. Captain Shepard held up her hands in a warding gesture.

“Please, there are some things a mother has a right not to know.”

Shepard laughed.

“He’s always had your back?”

“Always.”

“He’s got good taste, then. If you love him, I will too.”

Shepard ran a thumb back and forth over the bottle of wine. “I think I do. Not sure that matters, stuck in here.”

“They won’t keep you stuck in here when the Reapers come.”

“You believe me about that?”

“Of course I do.”

“Because you think I’m right or because you’re my mother?”

“I didn’t raise a fool. You know Anderson believes you too, even though you’re doing your best to punish him.”

Shepard folded her arms.

“Stop sulking. Anderson and Hackett will find a way for you to convince the Defense Committee, but you’d better stow the teenage attitude.”

Shepard snapped her mother a much sharper salute this time but she still remained sitting.

“Aye aye, Captain Shepard.”

“Damn straight, Commander Shepard.”

* * *

The next morning James arrived at his usual time with his usual number of coffees. One to the guard on duty, one for himself, the last for Shepard. He opened the door to the apartment carefully to avoid the junk in the entryway but once he got inside he found the floor empty. The bags of Shepard’s belongings weren’t there anymore. Neither were the piles of laundry. He made his way down the hallway to the living room, noting that the door to the bedroom was shut. The couch was empty. James hummed contemplatively to himself and dropped Shepard’s coffee off on the kitchen counter. He took his own coffee with him and sipped it while he walked idly around the living room, noting the usual scattered detritus of a life in confinement had been cleared away. He got to the bookcase, which was still empty except for the empty wine bottle Shepard had placed on it yesterday. The new bottle of wine had been placed next to it. Just as he was about to turn away he noticed the corner of the label was peeling away from the bottle. Curious, he tugged at it, and it pulled free very easily, as if it had already been peeled away once before. On the backside of the label was some writing. He chuckled at the cleverness of it, his scan before had completely missed it.

Scrawled in a shaky hand in the cramped space were the words: Save this for me. Miss you. G.

James heard a light footfall in the hallway and turned to see Shepard standing there, dressed in workout clothes, eyeing him and the bottle.

“So what are you going to do with that, lieutenant?”

James smoothed the label back down onto the bottle and returned it to the shelf.

“Do with what, ma’am?”

Shepard narrowed her eyes and considered him. He stood straight and unblinking under her regard and felt a little stirring in his chest. Finally she nodded.

“Alright, lieutenant. You allowed to take your prisoner out for a supervised run?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said and paused, considering the wisdom of his next remark. What the hell. “It’s not like you’re gonna be able to outrun me.”

“Was that sass, Vega?”

Her voice was so even he couldn’t tell what she was thinking. But he felt a little thrill at the sound of his name. She did know it.

“Just stating the facts, ma’am.”

The corners of her mouth tightened, but quirked ever so slightly upward.

“We’ll see about that.”

“Sure thing, commander.”

She turned and headed for the door. He noticed she hadn’t corrected him this time.


End file.
